Gout is a very costly condition. When I said costly, I am referring to the costly medicines that you will be needing to treat the condition. Well, if you will have gout, you will be able to spend a lot of money for the maintenance medicines. It is for a certain that the pain that the condition produces is more than enough. What more if the pain will be added to the pain in the pocket due to the medications?
The truth here is that, it isn’t the cost of the medications that really matter here. It’s their uselessness or ineffectiveness. Let’s get this straight to the point: there’s no medication that may help in treating gout. Nevertheless, there are various medications that may mask the pains, as well as the symptoms. Two of such medications are the indomethacin and the naproxen. The question here now is, which of them is really better when it comes to the management of the pain and the inflammation that’s caused by gout?
NSAIDs.
Both medications (naproxen and indomethacin) fall under the category of drugs known as NSAIDs or the Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. As the name itself implies, they’re both intended for the reduction of the inflammation. Remember, this means that they just simply remove the pain and the inflammation. They are not capable of removing the root cause of the problem, which is the uric acid. The chief difference between the two is their own degree of side effects.
Side Effects of Indomethacin and Naproxen
As stated earlier, as an NSAID, both of the medications have a fair share of the side effects, mainly gastrointestinal bleeding and peptic ulcer, including the fatal cardiovascular effects. So if you’re okay with the bleeding inside out just to take away the pain temporarily, go on and take one of them. The Naproxen is somewhat better than the indomethacin due to the latter, is known to cause more severe cases of the side effects.
Both of these medications, together with some other medications out there, just masks the symptoms. If you’re going to plan in solving the condition once and for all, you must think out of the box, open your mind, and get rid of the uric acid.
The Mechanism of Action of Indomethacin and Naproxen
Now let’s delve deeper and analyze these two medications. How do they really work? What causes all of their side effects?
Different from the other medications out there, the side effects of the NSAIDs may be explained through thorough studying of their own mechanisms, not just by staring at the numbers of the patients that fell prey to their own side effects.
NSAIDs hinder the production of the cyclooxygenase enzymes, which are accountable for the conversion of the arachidonic acids into prostaglandins. Meanwhile, since the prostaglandins are the ones accountable for the pain and inflammation as their defense mechanisms, you’ll not experience any pain and swelling when it isn’t produced. Unluckily, this may leave the body susceptible to attacks. For short, taking either of the two medications may cause the suppression of the immune system hence leaving you unprotected against bacteria, viruses and some other foreign entities. This is particularly true when it comes to indomethacin, because indomethacin mutilates the white blood cells so it’ll not respond to any foreign invasions and will consequently not cause any pain.
Finally, all the NSAIDS cause gastrointestinal bleeding and peptic ulcer because the prostaglandins are also accountable for the mucus lining maintenance of the stomach. If you are going to disable the production of the prostaglandins, you will be disabling the maintenance of the mucus lining finally leading to an ulcer or even in bleeding.
Conclusion
As ac conclusion, naproxen is a bit better than the indomethacin since it has a relatively less austere side effect. Nevertheless, this doesn’t change the fact that both of which may not treat the condition. Neither of the two focus on the root cause of the condition, which is the uric acid. You can take them for as long as you want, together with some other medications out there, but it will not do you any good.so be careful with the use of these medications.
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